1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pixel defect detection and correction device with a function of detecting and compensating for a defective pixel in a solid state imaging device, such as a CCD or a CMOS sensor, an imaging apparatus, a pixel defect detection and correction method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, it is known that a defective pixel is generated in a solid state imaging device, such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensor.
In such a solid state imaging device, it is known that a defective pixel, which outputs an abnormal imaging signal, is generated due to a local crystal defect of a semiconductor device and the like and this causes deterioration of the image quality.
Examples of the defective pixel include a black defective pixel and a white defective pixel.
That is, pixel defects of a solid state imaging device include a white defect, which is caused by an addition of a predetermined amount of electric charges to the normal signal level, and a black defect, by which the signal level drops at a predetermined rate or a signal level around zero is output all the time.
Since these defects cause deterioration of the image quality at the time of image output, various kinds of defect detection and correction methods have been proposed (for example, see Japanese Patent No. 3747909).
In order to determine whether or not a pixel of interest is defective, it is general to set a certain threshold value and to determine that the pixel of interest is defective when the value of the pixel of interest exceeds the threshold value.
In normal techniques, a value obtained by multiplying the maximum and minimum values of eight adjacent pixels with the same color or different colors by a coefficient, which can be set from the outside, is generally used as the threshold value.